Hey everyone,
I wanted all of you to be some of the first to know that I've made an important decision about my future, and how that decision will affect the future of Diablo.

I recently celebrated my seven-year anniversary working on Diablo III, and while it’s been one of the most challenging and rewarding periods of my life, I've reached a point creatively where I'm looking forward to working on something new. The powers that be at Blizzard have been gracious enough to give me that opportunity. Over the course of the next several weeks, I will be moving off of the Diablo III project and transitioning elsewhere within Blizzard. This decision was not an easy one for me, and not one I made quickly, but ultimately it’s what I feel is right.

The first thing I want to assure you all is that this will not negatively impact our ongoing support of Diablo III. The game was not made by one person, far from it, and the team that poured their passion and considerable talent into it isn’t going anywhere. We have lots of things planned for the future, and those plans will carry forward as normal. I also won't be abandoning the team, and will remain available to them during the transition period while we determine who will take over duties as game director.

To that point, you shouldn't be surprised if you see a job posting for a game director on Diablo III, as we want to make sure we explore every opportunity to find the best possible leadership for the project. We’re looking forward to finding this person and hearing what kind of fresh ideas they can bring to the table.

I'm proud of Diablo III, and despite our differences at times I will miss the community that has formed around it. I feel I have made many mistakes in managing that relationship, but my intent was always to provide a great gaming experience, and be as open and receptive as possible, while still sticking true to the vision the Diablo team has for the game.

I know some of you feel we fell short of our promise to release the game “when it’s ready.” While we're not perfect, we try to make the best decisions we can with the information and knowledge we have at the time. That doesn't mean we always make the right decisions, but if we made a mistake then I feel we've made an exceptional effort to correct it.

This is what you can always count on from Blizzard: that we will stand by our games and make every effort to continually improve them over time. We heard the feedback and suggestions from the community. For example, we agreed that Diablo III's itemization at launch was not good enough, so the team made numerous changes, including changing drop rates, re-tuning legendaries, and adding scores of new items to the game. We also agreed that the end game needed more depth, so the team added new events, and new systems like Monster Power and Paragon levels.

Our commitment to making our games as good as they can be is what has always defined Blizzard as a game studio, and that commitment never ends for us at a ship date. With your help, we'll continue to play, debate, and improve Diablo III, as we've done with every Blizzard game.

To that end, patch 1.0.7 is underway, the PTR is live, and there are many other great things brewing for Diablo in 2013. I’m leaving Diablo III in good hands, and my departure will not jeopardize the progress of the game as we continue to do what we do: listen, play, and improve.

You are the most passionate, dedicated group of gamers a designer could hope to have. I wish you all the best, and want to thank you for making this an amazing experience for me. Keep your axes sharp, your spell books handy, and that crafty devil in check.
--Jay

Good luck to Jay in future projects.
Im not stuck in the 90s, so I can enjoy D3 for what it is and not grasp at an old, outdated, "good-for-its-time" relic.Im certain D3 will be better than D2 ever was.

Good luck to Jay in future projects.
Im not stuck in the 90s, so I can enjoy D3 for what it is and not grasp at an old, outdated, "good-for-its-time" relic.Im certain D3 will be better than D2 ever was.

Lots of the good stuff from the 90s havent been implemented though, and thats a big mistake.

No Ladder
No runewords.
No PvP until 1.7
Only 4 players max instead of 8? big mistake.
heavy gold inflation as there is no gold sinks, or alternative currencies
Very little reason to team up
Removal of the usability og gold and magic find + a stupid cap.
No manual stat distribution as you are leveling up.
No infinite dungeon system.
Too much emphasis on weapon dmg and primary stats, which forces you to focus on only specific stats.
No funny weapons/items with special skill abilities(D2 teleport spell on a runeword comes to mind)
Poor combat against botters, resulting in a heavily inflated economy.
Little reason to level a new char as you can change your skills at a whim.

As someone who basically has given up on D3 (and who was more excited for it than any game ever pre launch) - I can't help but be happy about this.

I like Jay. I really really do. Everytime I hear him speak I think "I bet he's awesome to hang out with in real life".

I've even liked some of the directions he took D3.. and of course, I feel a bit of an attachment to him as no other game director have I personally scrutinized to the extent I did with Jay.

All that said, so many of the choices, design goals, and ultimately the direction the entire game has gone in are in places that I feel are not good for the longevity of the game, nor for my continued enjoyment of the game - that I feel this is good news.

This at least gives me hope that the "new lead" is willing to revisit some of the choices that have been made.. perhaps take the expansion in a new direction.

Time will tell - Best of Luck Jay - hope the future works out for him!

Btw, I don't need to defend Jay Wilson, but he DID make a game that sold 10M copies (even if 3-5% of them were bots or multiboxers), and he did accomplish a huge ongoing revenue for Blizzard through the RMAH. His financial success is undeniable.

If the game is good or not, well, it's not as good as D2, but it's not as bad as people say. It does get boring fast unfortunately, even though the combat is the best of any arpg ever...

lol, he steered Diablo III development into being the top-selling PC game of the year, and as a result, Blizzard have tasked him with replicating that success on a new title.

Yeah sure. Because 95% ppl knew who Jay Willson was when buying this game. People bought this game because it was Diablo, because it was Blizzard game, they belived that it will be great game. And after that they have woke up with some kind of Beta version of the game on their PC's. Wherever you go Jay - don't fuck up another game please.

As soon as I saw "A Message from Jay Wilson" on the Facebook page I knew it was gonna be him stepping down as director. Can't say I didn't see it coming, either. Diablo III has gotten very boring for a lot of people, and they're very slow to add the fun back into the game. I hope he has better luck on whatever he moves on to.

Why doesn't Wyatt Cheng take over? Why do they need to bring in a new guy?

Well apart from their desperate need of new ideas...

This was my first thought after reading the post. He clearly loves the game and he's aware of what works and what doesn't. I'm usually pretty sceptical about what people say but every post he's written about the game shows he knows it perfectly. Wyatt gets my vote!

My second though was that D3 is an awesome game and Jay Wilson had a big part in that. I wish him the best of lucks.